A dash of color
by tanabatadreams
Summary: Sasuke recounts how many different colors he has seen on Sakura, and how they've made him fall more in love with her.
**A/N: The story is not compliant with the manga. In this universe Sasuke stays in Konoha after the war and team seven is reinstated.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

* * *

 _Red._

They are twelve and in the forest of death.

Somehow, what was supposed to be a test to determine skill ended up taking a sinister turn with the involvement of the snake sannin. Now both the boys of team seven lay inside the hollow of a tree trunk as their female teammate stood guard.

The protected became the protector.

When Sasuke awakens, sleep is quickly dispelled from his body as a sharp pain courses through him, awakening all his senses. He clutches his shoulder in hopes of dulling the pain, but it's futile.

Hoisting himself up, he looks at the jinchuriki lying beside him, still unconscious. Panic seizes him when he realizes that with both of them unconscious; Sakura was left to fend for her own in a forest where everyone was out to get them.

He immediately sits up straighter and looks around.

He sees red.

Shining bright and vivid in the dull green shrubbery, he sees the red of Sakura's qipao, the red of the blood tainting her forearms and legs, the red of his brother's eyes when he drove a sword through his parents.

This time, Sasuke is filled with a different kind of pain. The pain of watching another person precious to him suffer. His stomach clenches uncomfortably as he imagines drops of red trickling down Sakura's body as she stood between him and danger and he vows to never see that sight again.

Ignoring the cries of his worn out muscles, Sasuke taps into the power of the cursed seal and stands up.

"Sakura, who did this to you?"

* * *

 _Purple._

The allied forces struggled as the war raged higher. Which is why it was hardly surprising that everyone momentarily chose to forget about Sasuke's defection and rejoiced about his decision to assist them.

But the joy was short lived.

Within moments, the allied forces were surrounded by thousands of ten tail clones. The sheer number of them was overwhelming.

Sasuke, too, stood perplexed. Owing to their massive size, one shinobi could only take on one of the clones at a time. At this rate, the only way to defeat them would be by using a summon. Perhaps it was time to call on Aoda.

His hands flew to form the seals, but before he could go through with the jutsu, he saw Sakura launch herself at the clones.

'Foolish girl, what does she think she's doing?'

Protective instincts from years ago awakened within him, as he moved to step in between her and the clones. But before he could reach her, she had already punched a clone and sent him flying.

Jumping over them, she landed on the ground with a feral war cry erupting from her throat. The ground trembled and broke apart where she landed, and effectively crushed hundreds of clones in a span of seconds.

Sasuke looked on in awe as he watched the frail, delicate girl from his memories stand in the centre of the impact crater she created with her fists. After all this time away from Konoha, for the first time he wondered just how much he had missed in his absence.

She tilted her head and Sasuke saw the testament of her strength and all that he had lost to time on her forehead, a purple diamond.

* * *

 _Green._

Old team seven is on a mission in the land of waves. It's a simple scroll retrieval mission but the risk factor is high.

Surrounded by hundreds of armed soldiers, Uchiha Sasuke thinks he understands why.

He unsheathes his kusanagi and launches into the fight.

Somewhere in the middle of the battle, Sasuke realizes he has wandered away from his teammates who were in a fight of their own. A creeping worry begins to nag the back of his mind but he pushes it aside and turns his attention back to the soldiers in front of him.

At the end of the gruesome battle, Sasuke makes his way back to regroup with his team. The nagging in his brain grows louder when he sees Kakashi and Naruto hunched around a figure on the ground, and his heart stills completely when he realizes it's Sakura.

Stoic composure thrown to the wind, he rushes forward and kneels at her side.

"How did this happen?"

"That bastard got her from behind" Naruto growled through clenched teeth as he pointed to a body with a rasengan shaped hole lying some distance away from them. Unbridled fury filled Sasuke and he was sure if that soldier was alive, he would have killed him in the worst way possible.

But there were more urgent matters at hand instead of listing the most gruesome ways to kill someone. Picking up Sakura in his arms, he ran towards Konoha faster than he ever imagined himself capable of moving.

After hours of surgery, Saukra was moved to a pristine hospital room. Tsunade said there was nothing more left for the medics to do, and now all they could do was wait for her to wake up.

Three days later when she finally arose from her comatose state, Sasuke was beside her. He watched as her eyelids fluttered and slowly rose to reveal emerald green irises looking up at him in confusion, and decided it was his favorite color.

* * *

 _Pink._

There's a festival in town and Sakura has agreed to accompany him to it.

It's funny he thinks, how their roles have been reversed. A lifetime ago, she would have been the one begging him to go to the festival with her, but this time she was the one that needed convincing.

Eventually, she agreed that the hospital wouldn't burn to the ground if she was away for a day, and blushed a pretty pink as she nodded in consent.

His eyes widened when he arrived at her house and saw her in a stunning red kimono with cherry blossoms sown on its sleeves. Breaking out of his reverie, he recounted everything Kakashi had told him about courting a woman and held his hand out for her to take. A look of surprise momentarily flashed on her face before she smiled and accepted the invitation.

When they arrived at the festival, the place was packed. It seemed as though all of Konoha and the neighboring villages had decided to attend. They pushed through the crowd and began to take a look around.

The evening proved to be wonderful after all. They ate a stall where Sakura managed to persuade Sasuke into trying some animitsu, played several games, and Sasuke even bought Sakura a ruby pendant. Towards the end of the evening, it seemed like the crowd had gotten even bigger. Weaving his way through the throng of people, panic gripped Sasuke when he suddenly realized Sakura was not next to him.

Frantically looking around, his voice barely registered the announcement of the fireworks beginning in a few minutes, he was far too occupied with locating Sakura in the massive pack of people. He was just about to activate his Sharingan when he spotted a shock of pink hair in the crowd.

Sasuke sighed in relief and allowed himself a moment to acknowledge how her bright hair that was usually a hindrance on stealth missions proved to be helpful in finding her in a mass of people.

Speeding towards her, he reached her and took her hand in his, vowing to not lose sight of her again. Sakura gasped at the strength of his grip before she saw the receding signs of apprehension in his face and realized how worried he must have been.

Smiling, she laced her fingers through his and walked towards the fireworks viewing area.

* * *

 _White._

Sakura looks beautiful in white, he thinks to himself.

The white of her doctor's coat as she mends bones in a blink of an eye, the white of his shirt that she wears when she spends the night at the Uchiha mansion, the white of her wedding kimono as she walks towards him.

His lips part slightly as he watches her traverse the distance to the aisle, and he wonders what he's ever done to deserve her.

He wonders if he's doing the right thing by letting her tie down her life to his, when all he's done is break and all she's done is heal.

She quells away his doubts as she squeezes his hand in hers, and he remembers the smile on her face when she wakes up in the morning and stretches beside him, a smile only for him.

She lets go of his hand and they turn towards the priest, who begins the ceremony.

When the rituals are over and he takes her in his arms to kiss her, Sasuke vows that even though he doesn't deserve her now, he'll spend the rest of his life trying to become a man who does.

And when he closes his eyes and deepens the kiss, imagining the future that lies ahead if them, he sees explosions of white behind his eyelids.

* * *

 **A/N: First oneshot! Whaddaya think? Tell me in the reviews!**


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